Monthly Archives: July 2013

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I am in team six! Our lovely team 🙂 include Jasmine, Grace, Jennifer, Joyce, Debbie, and me. And our team leader Anna.

At first our team is so quiet that everyday when Anna tell us to share our thought or to pray, everyone were like so quiet and our team will always be the first one to end. But with days and days we had meet each other more and had know from each other more too. We spent most of our time at the morning team prayer and also the evening’s one. We had all open our hearts and had also see that God were keep giving us conditions to live together and also love one another. We also have testimony every morning one by one by each of us, and at every night we also have snacks which Anna bring to us and share our day together.

We share together. We learns God’s words together, read Bible together and also pray for one another and thank you God for letting me be in Team . I am glad to have them. 🙂

Every morning and night, we have team devotions. I really like team devotions because you can share your own feeling with your team. Not only that, you can closer with a certain group of people. Although having team devotions first thing in the morning was not I want, it can start your day with God’s Words!

I love sharing during team devotions, since you can trust them with all our heart. Knowing they won’t tell others about the things we talked in our group. I value every person in my group, and that we get closer each day. My team is like my second family, we can talk to them about anything. I talked to my group leader about a problem I encountered earlier, and it calmed my mind after talking to her. I would treasure my team, since there will be so little time to talk to them after VOICE.

Today’s special is — cooking! Luckily our table got to make chocolate bleeding hearts. Looking at the other tables making some like cinnamon or something else, I don’t like it. I felt I was really lucky. First, we guessed what we will do. There was some chocolate, sugar, salt, flour, vanilla extract and cocoa. So I think we may make some delicacy, because all of those things are quite good.

Actually, I am a gourmet and chocolate is a heaven to me. First, we had to separate the dry and wet ingredients. Then we mixed the elements. And we are waiting for our cookies now. I look forward to our cookies being great and not burnt.

Sometimes we go to the park at night. We play football, volleyball, and frisbee. It’s my first time to play frisbee. It’s so fun and tiring. Everyone goes crazy when they are playing it. In Taiwan, we don’t have football or fields big enough. It’s more difficult than I thought. I thought it’s very easy and exciting but actually it’s very hard to throw the ball. I can’t throw it well. Yesterday we played beach volleyball. We had different rules from Taiwanese volleyball, but it’s still very good. Everyone was very excited and attentive, including the girls.
I think there are a lot of differences from playing with classmates and playing with friends in Christ. In school, we always want to win the games and we sometimes have arguments. But, I always have a lot of fun when I play with brothers and sisters in Christ. We even encouraged our opponents.

It was an awesome experience to visit the host family. I was a little bit nervous, before. I went there with Ruby, Ruth, Rebecca, Joyce, Grace, and Lucy. Their house is really big. We were assigned to the Kings’ house. They have three cats and a horse. The horse’s name is Prince Charming. Haley is the youngest kid in their family and she is seventeen years old. She drove us to her house and her father and her older sister, Hillary, drove another car.

We chatted and played the piano together. We ate a dinner that her mother prepared for us. It was really delicious. Although we were late for coming back, I had a great time in their home.

We have morning devotions in teams everyday. Although we often feel sleepy when sitting there, God’s words still come into my heart. He makes me know Him better and better. The most touching one is that “God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble.” He told me that He will never forsake me or forget me. He is always there besides me. That is very sweet, especially when I’m alone, I won’t feel disappointed or lonely.
His words are like a stream soft and gentle making His children feel loved and safe, and I’m really enjoying that Father’s love from God. Morning devotion is also the time we can share our feeling of God’s words and through other teammates’ words, we can see those words in different angles, which is really great. Morning devotion is an energetic way to start our bright new day.

When we’re suffering from something we think is bad, there always are some questions, like “Where’s God?”, “Is God silent?” and “Why is God doing nothing?” I think we all take for granted that we should have a smooth life, without any tragedy. All of a sudden, a person we love dies and we start to blame and question God. “Why did it happened to him?”, “He did nothing wrong. Why did you take him away from us?” And we start to doubt that God is still there in the tragedy that just happened, like the bombing in OKC.

I believe that God is with us every moment, even in the saddest moments in our life. Or, to say that in a different way, especially in the saddest moments God is with us. Everything that happens to us has a purpose and God allows it to happen. Like the story in Job, Job was a righteous man but still God let him suffer. God didn’t even answer his question about why he was suffering, but he still praise God and believe in Him.

It was hard to accept it, especially for the families of those victims in the bombing event in OKC. I’m sure there was God’s works and God’s love in it. So many people come into rescue even though they were outside of OKC. If God doesn’t work, there wouldn’t be people helping each other.

Sometimes we know why we’re suffering a period of time. Sometimes we never know. I think the best attitude to deal with it is to believe in Him always.

Morning devotion is the first schedule of everyday. I always learn a lot and think a lot through devotion time. God also teaches me many things from His word from the start of the day.

In devotions, we first read I John for our major reading. We shared what we learned, we felt, and also our experiences with our team. sometimes we sang songs to help us remember the words in the Bible.

In these days, God’s word made me keep thinking about how what we did was lying to God or not. In the Bible, John wrote “The man who says that he knows God but doesn’t do what He commands is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him. But if anyone obeys His word, God’s love is made complete in him.” These words reminded me that if we are Christians, we learn many teachings from God, Than we must do it well and follow the rules. If we don’t, we just seem like the same as other people who aren’t Christians. Because some people know about God and His teaching, but they don’t need to follow. What we see is that we say we are Christians, but our lives are not like a Christian’s life, than we are just like we are pretending to be another person. We don’t just lie to people, but God.

I think morning devotion is very good. It lets me listen to God and learn His teaching as the first thing I do in a day. And I like to keep what I learn in the morning to see and think do I really follow God’s teaching in my life.

Before we got into the dining room, we chose a note for the table which we will sit. I looked for my table for a long time although some one’s help. I still couldn’t find it. (Because I skipped it). Finally, I found it.

There were some guys already set in the table. They were Nicholas and Jess. And then more and more people joined us. They were Rita, Celia, Christian, James and Lucy.

There were many candies on the table, and the table was decorated with orange and yellow. There was also an envelope there, it was for the game -History about Thanksgiving. We needed to use the notes in the envelope to make the story keep going. (But we failed).

Then we played an exciting game and had a race in the hall. All of the members in my team had a lot of fun.

After the race, we went back to the dining room to watch a performance about a guy named “Squanto”. It was a story about an Indian who didn’t have a lucky life but helped Puritans and Indians a lot. From his story, I saw that I should always trust in God, and you will find something amazing happens!